Take care of the little things and the big things take care of themselves. When you can’t get the basics right, your customers start wondering about your credibility.

On a related note, I would also recommend staying out of the village of Crestwood if you can avoid it.

Inspired by the enthusiasm of the local non-profit participants, WRITEIMAGE is offering a FREE communications and copywriting consultation for any non-profit in British Columbia, valid until the end of September 2010.

That’s right. This isn’t just for Netsquared Camp participants (though I would certainly like to work with many of them on their worthy causes). If you’re in BC, you get a free consultation of up to one hour on a topic of your choosing related to communications strategy and copywriting for non-profits.

Want to know more about:

• Communications strategy?
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) through your written content?
• Best practices for sending out email newsletters?
• Strategy for press releases and media management?
• How to build web traffic through a blog?
• How to get more leads or donations through strong calls to action?

Contact us to schedule a consultation on communications and content strategies and tactics for your non-profit. Email info [AT] writeimage [DOT] ca or call (604.230.2638).

Now, what precisely happened at N2Camp this weekend? I’ll be giving an overview a bit later, but here I will shamelessly promote my own involvement. Priorities, you understand.

I gave two presentations. One was a case study on how an organization I work with, the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee, used social media and more traditional marketing methods to help change public opinion in Canada.

The second event was a facilitated discussion about the Cost of Social Media. We took input from social media consultants and related contractors as well as from the managers (or people role-playing managers) of various types of organizations. While we did float around some costs for various social media tasks and positions, it’s clear that the compensation for these sorts of jobs will vary widely. That said, I stressed the importance for contractors of at least being able to provide a ballpark figure — simply responding, “that depends” may be realistic and pragmatic, but it’s going to turn off the people willing to buy services.

Overview of N2Camp coming in a bit. Check in later!

Love this. An oldie but goodie.

• “horrible tragedy” – use this phrasing to differentiate the described event from hilarious tragedies.
• bazaar/bizarre/Bizarro – We bought a bizarre clown toilet paper cozy from Bizarro at the church bazaar.
• An easy way that you can save space is to edit out the overused word “that.” That’s just not a word that needs that much use.
• Unless premeditation was obvious or a suspect is convicted, do not say a victim was murdered. Instead, use the alternate “schmurdered.”

Example 1

Not So Good
The XYZ enables your company personnel to operate with enhanced efficiency.

Better
The XYZ helps your employees do their job better.

Example 2

Not So Good
If you are unsatisfied with our product’s performance, then take advantage of our 30-day offer of a complimentary replacement or we will compensate your organization’s expenditure.

Better
If the product isn’t working or you’re just unhappy with it within 30 days of buying it, we can replace it or give you a refund.

I’d certainly be happy to have readers of this blog listen in to Murray Langdon’s radio show on CFAX 1070 out of Victoria on Wednesday, May 12 at about 11:50 am. But I’m not really mentioning this media appearance to plug my opinions on economics. I’m not an economist or finance guy and this blog is certainly not about those topics, either.

But I did want to illustrate a simple point: if you want your organization to get noticed by the media, then it helps to publish something. Get some blog posts up. Hire someone to get you some press releases. Throw some case studies on your site. Create content and if you’re lucky, this will generate serious interest from the media. Keep plugging away and eventually, content pays off with better PR.

It’s not just content on the web that works, either. Print marketing campaigns have been around forever. You never know 100 per cent for sure where your name will get noticed.

Hmmmm. On this topic, I’m reminded of one of the funniest scenes in one of the funniest movies of all time, The Jerk:

Navin
The new phone book’s here! The new phone book’s here!

Navin
Nothing? Are you kidding?! Page 73, Johnson, Navin, R.! I’m somebody now! Millions of people look at this book every day! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity, you’re name in print, that makes people. I’m impressed! Things are going to start happening to me now.

And he was right. Good things started happening to Navin R. Johnson

Naturally, the worst examples come from academia. Still, they do have lessons for writers of business materials and marketing content.

Here are the best of the worst (Or would that be the worst of the worst?):

The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

If that is the way this writer talks, he must be a blast at dinner parties.

Here’s another gem:

If such a sublime cyborg would insinuate the future as post-Fordist subject, his palpably masochistic locations as ecstatic agent of the sublime superstate need to be decoded as the “now-all-but-unreadable DNA” of a fast deindustrializing Detroit, just as his Robocop-like strategy of carceral negotiation and street control remains the tirelessly American one of inflicting regeneration through violence upon the racially heteroglossic wilds and others of the inner city.

Perhaps if he moved “Robocop” closer to the beginning of the sentence and got rid of “heteroglossic”, this passage could be salvaged… or not.

It’s so sad. Communication is at the heart of what human beings do. It’s depressing when higher education turns out people with tremendous smarts and the inability to order a cheeseburger without using the word, “entelechy”.

Using big words in rapid succession doesn’t make you smart. It certainly won’t help you sell 99 per cent of all products on Earth. Good writing gets your point across in a way that your target audience will understand immediately.

When in doubt, delete all references to “lugubriousness”. You’ll thank me later.

There’s certainly something to be said for fine-tuning and adapting your messaging for different markets if you are targeting distinct niches. That said, a coherent marketing and communication strategy will typically involve some key language that is repeated again and again and… you get the idea.

Read the full article, Use Consistent Messaging

1. heatherlloyd: Taking time to put yourself in your target audience’s shoes helps you create copy that’s more targeted and less mechanical

2. charismatickid: If you read your copy out loud and you hear the same keyphrases over and over, it’s time to edit.

3. healymonster: Copywriting tip: Write like you talk. People get sucked into copy that’s easy to read.

4. CopywriterTO: #Copywriting tip: Get your readers’ attention by starting your copy with a compelling story.

5. Mainecopywriter: Copy Tip: Only 10% of your copy gets read. Use subheads to capture attention and draw the reader into the copy.

6. Cbreecopy: Tip: Shorter is not always better. Longer titles are more descriptive and provide better SEO.

7. caseyfleming: #Copywriting tip: Talk about your customers 90% of the time and your company only 10% of the time.

See the full list here. Thanks, Eric!